HEADLINES

Maddux Trujillo

NFL Minor Transactions: 9/5/25

September 5th, 2025 at 7:11pm CST by Ely Allen

Here are Friday’s minor transactions as we await Game 2 of the 2025 season, including today’s standard gameday practice squad elevations for the Chiefs and Chargers:

Atlanta Falcons

Chicago Bears

Cincinnati Bengals

Green Bay Packers

Indianapolis Colts

Kansas City Chiefs

Las Vegas Raiders

Los Angeles Chargers

Each NFL team is granted two standard gameday practice squad elevations each game, allowing them to call up two members of their practice squad that are able to play in that weekend’s game. After the game is played, the elevated players revert back to the practice squad with no transaction required. This differs from a transaction like we saw earlier today wherein wide receiver Justin Shorter was signed to the Raiders’ active roster from their practice squad. He is now permanently on the team’s 53-man roster until they cut him or until his contract expires.

Practice squad players can be called up a maximum of three times under a single practice squad contract. If the team wants to call up a player who’s been called up three times already, team’s will usually sign the player to their active roster for a game, cut them after, and then sign them to a new practice squad contract. Under a new contract, the player would be eligible to be elevated for three more games.

Colts Place LB Jaylon Carlies On IR, Set 53-Man Roster

August 26th, 2025 at 7:28pm CST by Ben Levine

The Colts have cut down their roster to 53 players. The team announced the following moves:

Released:

Waived:

Waived/injured:

  • K Maddux Trujillo

Placed on IR (designated for return):

Jaylon Carlies will be forced to miss at least the first four games of the upcoming season, but it sounds like it should be a minimum stay on IR for the linebacker. According to Joel A. Erickson of the Indy Star, Carlies should only require a short stint on injured reserve as he recovers from an ankle injury. The 2024 fifth-round pick started six of his 10 appearances for the Colts last season, collecting 36 tackles and one sack.

While he’s not the biggest name from the list of cuts, linebacker Austin Ajiake was waived in a bit of a surprising move. As Erickson notes, the former UDFA spent significant time with the second-team unit during the preseason, and he even got some reps with the first team. A UNLV product, Ajiake has also had stints with the Broncos, Raiders, and Packers. He spent the entire 2024 campaign on Indy’s taxi squad.

Spencer Shrader Leading Colts’ Kicking Competition

August 15th, 2025 at 1:35pm CST by Nikhil Mehta

After spending 2024 as a spot starter for three different teams, Colts kicker Spencer Shrader has firmly positioned himself to take over a full-time starting job this season.

Colts special teams coordinator Brian Mason indicated (via Joel Erickson of the Indianapolis Star) that Shrader has taken a commanding lead against undrafted rookie Maddux Trujillo in the team’s kicking competition. Shrader, 26, is expected to take every kick in Saturday’s preseason game against the Packers as well as most of the reps in practice moving forward, according to team writer Amanda Foster.

Shrader signed with the Colts as an undrafted free agent last year but couldn’t beat out veteran Matt Gay for the starting job. He was activated as an injury replacement in Week 1, but Gay quickly returned to the field and Shrader was eventually released in October. The Jets signed him to their practice squad to kick in Week 9, and he replaced Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker in Weeks 10 and 11. Across his four appearances, Shrader went 5-for-5 on his field goal attempts with a long of 45 yards and converted all nine extra points. He landed on injured reserve towards the end of the season with a hamstring injury and re-signed with the Colts in the offseason.

The second-year kicker has outkicked his rookie competition thus far this preseason with an 87% conversion rate in training camp compared to Trujillo’s 78%, per Foster. Shrader made three of his four kicks against the Ravens in the Colts’ first preseason game with a long of 53 yards and a 52-yarder that bounced off the goal post. Trujillo didn’t attempt any field goals and converted his lone extra point. Shrader was also noticeably stronger and more accurate than Trujillo during a joint practice in Baltimore.

Clearly, the Colts’ kicking competition is Shrader’s to lose. If he can maintain his consistency over the next few weeks, he should enter the regular season with the starting job in hand.

Colts Reveal 14-Man UDFA Class

May 11th, 2025 at 9:08pm CST by Ely Allen

After selecting an eight-man draft class equally balanced on offense and defense, the Colts continued their balanced ways with 14 undrafted free agent signings. Here are the newest additions to the team’s 22-man rookie class:

Between Washington and Tennison, the Colts brought in a strong one-two punch at safety. Washington had a knack for making a play on the ball in the air for the Rebels. During his final two years in University, Washington had four picks and 10 passes defensed. Tennison was much more of a strong safety, only recording one interception and four passes defensed in his career. Though he comes out of UCF, he played for two years alongside Washington at Ole Miss after transferring from Auburn. In those two years with the Rebels, Tennison logged 94 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, and 2.5 sacks.

Trujillo is the other name to note in the class. Matt Gay was mostly reliable in Indianapolis last year, but he struggled from deep, with all six of his misses coming from beyond 50 yards. The Colts released the veteran kicker a month ago, so Trujillo will now take part in kicking competition with Spencer Shrader for the placekicking job.

Shrader has a bit of a head start on Trujillo. He spent the offseason in Indianapolis last year as part of the team’s 2024 undrafted free agent class. After an injury to Gay, Shrader kicked in the team’s season opener, making three extra point attempts. He was released in mid-October and signed to the Jets’ practice squad, getting elevated for one game and converting his only attempt from 45 yards. The Chiefs then signed Shrader off New York’s taxi squad when Harrison Butker got hurt, and in two games, Shrader converted all six extra point attempts and all three field goal attempts, including a walk-off field goal to beat the Panthers in late November. He was placed on injured reserve in December and signed to return to Indianapolis in March.

Now, Shrader will have to hold off Trujillo, a former soccer player with a huge leg. While Trujillo only converted 70 of 97 field goal attempts over his time split at Austin Peay and Temple, Trujillo caught the eyes of plenty of scouts last year as he set a school record with a 64-yard kick against Utah State and then became just the third player in NCAA history with at least two 60-yard conversions two weeks later at UConn. After Gay’s struggles from deep cost him his role in Indianapolis, the Colts will surely be hoping to see Trujillo’s strong leg translate to the NFL level.